Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to my previous question to him and to the Prime Minister’s reference to his conversation with the former treasurer of the Liberal Party on his proposal to establish a company to build nuclear power stations. I refer also to the Prime Minister’s answer, as he reported earlier, to Mr Walker, when he said, ‘That’s a great idea, Ron.’ Could the Prime Minister confirm whether the company in question, Australian Nuclear Energy Ltd, was established on 1 June last year? Could the Prime Minister also confirm that he commissioned the Switkowski report to examine the future of nuclear power in Australia on 6 June last year?

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I cannot confirm, without doing a company search, that the company was incorporated and formed on 1 June. It could have been and, for the purposes of discussion, I am prepared to accept the word of the Leader of the Opposition that it was. But what on earth turns on that? My views in relation to nuclear power were well known before 1 June. They have been well known for some time. The Leader of the Opposition is going down a very silly track on this. I know what he is about. Walker, Morgan and de Crespigny are three very reputable businessmen. One of them had a conversation with me—I have many conversations—and he said that he was going to form a company and I said, ‘That is good, Ron.’ I do not apologise for that, because I actually believe in companies being formed. I believe in them making profits and I believe in them paying large taxes if they make a profit. I also believe that if we are honest about tackling climate change—and this is the big piece de resistance of the Australian Labor Party; they are going to lead the way forward in relation to climate change—here you have one of the solutions to climate change.

Let me remind you again, Mr Speaker, what the Chief Scientist, Dr Jim Peacock—he is the principal adviser to the government of Australia about science matters—had to say to me on 21 December 2006:

At present there are only two modes of power generation capable of base-load power production—

that means running the power stations that keep our cities going, that keep the lights on, that keep us in jobs and that keep the wealth being generated; they are indispensable to the economic capacity of this nation—

which can be operated without serious consequences for climate change emission.

And this is what this debate is meant to be meant all about. Surely, those who sit opposite are interested in something that can be run without a serious consequence for climate change emission. Mr Peacock said:

Fossil fuels will be used in Australia now and in the next several decades in power plants.

We all know that. He continued:

These power plants should be operated with minimum emissions and we have technologies to retrofit most existing power stations ...

And so he went on. He then said:

Nuclear power stations are the other clean and mature mode of electricity generation.

This is not John Howard; it is not some ideologue in the debate. It is the dispassionate, rational, impartial Chief Scientist of Australia.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ms Gillard interjecting

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Deputy Leader of the Opposition is warned!

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Those who sit opposite have spent the entirety of question time trying to establish something sinister in the fact that there may have been a conversation between me and Ron Walker. That is a measure of the trivia that this opposition goes on with at question time. This is meant to be the new Labor politics. This is meant to be the high standard. Let me say that I am not the least bit embarrassed about the fact that I have revealed to the world that Ron Walker had a conversation with me about this. Any suggestion of impropriety in that is ludicrous. The people who are doing themselves a disservice are the alternative government of this country. They are flouncing around Australia saying that they care about climate change. They have spent an hour trying to allege some conspiracy in relation to what the Chief Scientist says is one of the two modes of running power stations in this country which will not have harmful effects on our environment and will not be damaging in the climate change scenario. I would have thought that, instead of alleging in a childish, juvenile fashion that there was something sinister in my having had a discussion—

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ms King interjecting

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Ballarat is warned!

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

they would have had a serious debate. The last hour has revealed the Labor Party who sit opposite as inadequate and intellectually deprived participants in the climate change debate in Australia.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I seek leave to table the ASIC company extract on Australian Nuclear Energy Ltd, registration date 1 June 2006, and the Prime Minister’s statement of 6 June 2006 establishing the review of uranium mining processing and nuclear energy in Australia.

Leave granted.

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.